Let's say that, whether prompted by whim or by fever, you took a martial arts film and decided to throw it into a blender with a comic book, a video game, off-the-charts hyperactivity, and a dash of steampunkery. What you'd end up with would, in all likelihood, be not at all unlike "Tai Chi Zero."

That is, you'll get a frenetic tongue-in-cheek action film replete with flying fists, a goofy sense of humor and an all-over-the-map style. You also get a style-over-substance movie that -- not unlike the 12-year-old boys who will go ga-ga over it -- seems to have trouble keeping its focus amid the roundhouse kicks and other kung fu moves with such colorful names as "Monkey Offering Fruit" and "Lazily Tucking the Robe."

Still, thanks partly to its sky-high production value, a CG-enhanced sense of visual grandeur and a general affability, director Stephen Fung's Chinese-made film -- which opens Wednesday (Dec. 26) for a nine-day run at the Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center -- manages to squeeze out a reasonably entertaining, if brainless, jaunt through 19th century China.

That's the name of the film's hero, a young man born with once-in-a-generation talent for martial arts. But this gift, he's told, must be nurtured -- and Yang must travel to Chen Village to learn a style of "internal martial arts" designed to unlock his body's "energy channels." Or something like that. They were talking Chinese.

The catch: This particular discipline isn't taught to outsiders, and the villagers make that clear in the face-kickingest way possible. Not one to give up easily, the sweetly boobish Yang - referred to by the villagers as simply "the idiot" -- sets out to prove he's worthy of the knowledge.

He gets just such a chance, too, when a railroad industrialist - backed by evil Westerners - sets his sights on laying tracks right through the center of the village, whether its peasant residents like it or not. Backing him up: a hulking steampunk tank/rail-laying machine, manned by Western soldiers. As it turns out, Yang ends up being the village's only hope.

Aside from its strange insistence of crediting its actors in mid-scene throughout the movie (this one's an Olympic medalist, this one's a 1970s martial arts star, this one's a child prodigy), Fung's film also has a habit of flashing its English subtitles for frustratingly brief periods. Good thing, then, that the story is as slight as it is; "Tai Chi Zero" isn't a movie whose plot is so complex that missing a few lines will obscure it.

It does, however, have is a brisk pace and impressively choreographed fight scenes, aided by quick cuts, wire work, slo-motion and other such stylistic flourishes. It also - for better or for worse -- boasts a "to be continued" ending, as Fung's film is the first in a two-part tale to be continued in a sequel, titled "Tai Chi Hero."

My 12-year-old son will be very pleased to hear that, indeed.

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TAI CHI ZERO3 stars, out of 5

Snapshot: A frenetic martial arts action film about a young prodigy who must save a small village from a railroad industrialist intent on flattening it in the name of progress.

What works: It is visually stunning, with sky-high production values as well as impressive fight choreography.

What doesn't: It's largely a case of substance over style, with its slight story serving only as a means to move from fight scene to fight scene.